{"id":6085,"date":"2026-06-02T13:36:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/?p=6085"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:37:00","slug":"m-d-hafiz-afandi-we-must-protect-the-rohingya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/2026\/06\/02\/m-d-hafiz-afandi-we-must-protect-the-rohingya\/","title":{"rendered":"M.D. Hafiz Afandi, “We Must Protect The Rohingya”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

M.D. Hafiz Afandi<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We Must Protect The Rohingya<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Before I write further, allow me to apologize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe there is a lot I don’t know. Maybe there’s a lot I don’t understand. Perhaps there is a lot of information that I don’t have about the real life of the Rohingya community in Malaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the more I think about this issue, the more I feel we need to ask ourselves an honest question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we really understand their situation before we punish them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, it’s undeniable that many Malaysians don’t like Rohingya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say they are rude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say they like asking for handouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say they are trading illegally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone said they were dirty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say they carry a bad culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say they were engaged in crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not denying that some of this may be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the bigger question is, why did that happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And who’s really to blame?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I know, Rohingya in Malaysia are refugee under UNHCR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are not citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are not permanent residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are not foreign workers with work permits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They live in a very strange space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are not accepted as citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they can’t go back to their country of origin either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are right in the middle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are not given formal education like Malaysian children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are not given access to national schools like our children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They don’t have legitimate job opportunities like everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They don’t have a clear future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They grow up in poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They grow up in uncertain circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They grew up in conditions no human being should ever go through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we see them after ten or twenty years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see them children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see their new generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see some of them getting rough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see some of them becoming uncivilized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see some of them do not respect the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see some of them don’t have good morals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we get mad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But do we ever ask ourselves,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who raised that generation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we expect to happen to a child who doesn’t get an education?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we expect to happen to a teenager who doesn’t have legitimate employment opportunities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we expect to happen to a community that has lived in poverty for decades?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we expect to happen to human beings living without hope?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did we really think they were going to be doctors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To become an engineer ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be a professor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becoming a successful entrepreneur ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do they want to be all that when the road to that was never opened for them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again I affirm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t defend crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do not condone disrespect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dont condone violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t defend anyone who breaks the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I also cannot accept when an entire community is punished without us understanding the cause of the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People often see a Rohingya asking for alms on the roadside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But rarely do we ask how he got there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People saw a Rohingya who can’t read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But rarely do we ask who is preventing her from getting an education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Society sees a Rohingya living in filth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But rarely do we ask in what condition he was brought up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are seeing results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we refuse to see the cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bitter truth is that human beings are not born criminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans are not born beggars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans are not born uncivilized humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life circumstances play a huge role in shaping who they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we adopt a thousand Rohingya newborn babies today and raise them in stable families, give them good education, give them jobs, give them access to a dignified life, I believe most of them will become good human beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because they are humans too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also have potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also have ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also have hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also have dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when we see the Rohingya problems today, I think we should be honest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not only Rohingya’s problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a bigger failure of humanity than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can’t let a community live in the margins for decades, then be shocked when social problems begin to arise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s not how society works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s not how humans work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s not how history used to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe we can’t solve all their problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe Malaysia also has limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the government has its own security, economic and political considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at least, before we insult them, before we hate them, before we label them as useless human beings, try asking one simple question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I was born as a Rohingya, brought up without education, without a job, without a clear future, living in poverty for twenty years, will I be better than them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or maybe I will also become like them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And probably, those are the most difficult questions for us to answer honestly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M.D. Hafiz Afandi We Must Protect The Rohingya Before I write further, allow me to apologize. Maybe there is a lot I don’t know. Maybe there’s a lot I don’t understand. Perhaps there is a lot of information that I don’t have about the real life of the Rohingya community in Malaysia. Yet the more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7,6,133,2,127,1,130,11,16,131,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anti-racism","category-articles","category-history","category-human-rights-constitution-federal-democracy-social-nets-minority-rights","category-international-news","category-islam-hope-allah-swt","category-local-news","category-motivation","category-myanmar-muslims-history","category-opinion","category-quran","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6085"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6088,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6085\/revisions\/6088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}